Developers Are Picking Retrace Over New Relic

Who Wants A Repackaged Solution?

Beyond the actual positive differences between New Relic and its competitors, the name itself says enough for any seasoned tech veteran to be skeptical. Where do the terms “New” and “Relic” have any passing familiarity with innovative application support protocols? And, if there really is a “new relic” being brought to play, why doesn’t the program use logs?

New Relic alternatives like Retrace are, according to Stackify.com, superior as they feature logging, whereas New Relic “…integrations and alternatives don’t tightly integrate logging to code level traces.” With the sync applications of today, matching up data across multiple sources of data is virtually impossible without logs. Not only is New Relic more expensive, it’s less effective.

It appears as though the term “New Relic” is designed from a marketing angle to appeal in ways which draw novice designers after their product. There’s a refined nature to the name, and that doubtless contributes to the steep increase in price. Common complaints include overall cost, the cost of using New Relic on all servers, price hikes, and loss of free services.

That’s how New Relic ropes users in: they offer a trial of their services, and that eventually dries up. But a service model like that is designed to keep clients. Another evidence against New Relic is that many users simply move on to other programs, or other free trials. If the free plan demonstrated a profitable service, clientele would stay when it elapsed.

Don’t Get Backed Into A Wall

New Relic seems to be backing clients against a wall when it comes to annual agreements. This on top of seriously lacking tech. You want advanced log management and error features included in standard pricing, like Retrace. You want a solution that understands how integral logs are to application support; not some sub-par solution designed to trap you like New Relic.

App problems sometimes have relatively easy solutions, but even then fixing them is usually already a headache; finding and fixing them as quickly as possible is something most organizations running an application are going to try to do. You want data, performance views, dashboards—the whole nine yards. But you want it manageable, and easily navigable.

Look for code-level performance combined with errors, logs, and application measures for ease of understanding in your application management support solutions. Code level traces should be detailed. You want more broad support for frameworks as well as dependencies. Look for details of the “smart” variety; like queue names or cache keys. Logging views should be integrated in a streamlined way.

When it comes to quality assurance measures before full production, the solutions you use shouldn’t be too expensive for such a testing environment. Especially since such quality control solutions are needed before full production almost more than anywhere else.

A Pragmatic Perspective

Technology continues its forward march so quickly that oftentimes before you’re even able to enjoy the maturity of your investment, some new solution is out. Moore’s Law predicts a doubling in technological development at intervals of less than two years. That means you’ve got three or four years, tops, on any tech application before a new one is needed.

When you’ve got to transition so quickly, you can’t be over-spending on maintenance protocols, however necessary they may be. When you can save money and simultaneously source a better solution, you will increase the resiliency and strength of your organization, making outward expansion more successful.

Sometimes more cost-effective solutions are harder to source because they aren’t as evident, or don’t have as ubiquitous advertisement, as the “known” solution. So don’t buy the first application management tool you come across. Do your homework and find the best one – not just the most visible one.

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CrazyLeaf Editorial

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